A Child's Book of Poems

Completely fell out of the binding when it arrived I would not call this acceptable very disappointed!

I had this poem come into my head at the age of 40 - "old dog". The lines of it came to me once in awhile - I searched for it and searched for it - no luck anywhere. Finally I found an old handwritten book of poems of mine - favorites I had copied at the ripe old age of 10. Lo and behold - "Old Dog" was in this book. I bought it - I read it almost nightly to my 5 year old daughter and she is slowly but surely coming to love it also. At first I think she was just humoring her mother, but now she actually requests it. What a beautiful book, what lovely poetry. Another reviewer mentioned too much for their child, too boring, too something - I say "pshaw!" to that - half the problems with todays kids is that their parents don't even try to bring them back to the simpler days in life - when things weren't all flashy and quick and immediate. Read to your children, show them the finer things in life that we were shown oh so many years ago. They'll take to it too if you just give them the chance!

This book is filled with amazingly beautiful poetry by famous poets along with amazingly beautiful illustrations. Here are some of the poets and poems, William Blake--Night Which is the Way to Somewhere Town? Kate Greenaway Summer Sun --Robert Louis Stevenson Wenkyn, Blenkyn and Nod--Eugene Field The Kitten and the Falling Leaves--William Wordsworth The City Mouse and the Garden Mouse--Christina Rossetti Trees--Sarah Coleridge The Mountain and the Squirrel--ralph Waldo Emerson Certainty--Emily Dickenson THe Months--Sarah Coleridge The Owl and the Pussycat--Edward Lear A Sea Song from the Shore--James Whitcomb Riley My Valentine--Robert Louis Stevenson The Crocodile--Lewis Carroll Who is Tapping at my Window?---A.G.Deming The Sea Gull--Gaelic Folk Song The Eagle--Alfred Lord Tennyson Pippa's Song--Robert Browning Lo, THe Winter is Past--Song of Solomon Spring--William Blake From the Bridge--John Keats Let Dogs Delight--Isaac watts Good Night--Victor Hugo Early to Bed--Old Proverb, Mother--George cooper, A Swing Song---William Allingham Be True--William Shakespeare, The Happy Sheep-- wilfred Thorley The Breeze--Old Garden Rhyme Daisies--Frank Dempster sherman The Elf and the Doormouse--Oliver Herford There are many, many more like these. It's a book full of wonderment and innocence and respect for all our great creator has given us, including imagination.

My father read to us from this book when we were children, and all of us had our favorites. When I saw it had been reprinted, I bought a few! I have been reading to my kids from the old copy for several years. The variety of poetry in this collection is astounding. Poems date back to Shakespeare, into Dickenson's time, and also as recently as the 1960's. There are classics like Wynken, Blynken and Nod, but newer ones like What is Pink? A Rose is Pink. There are poems from women as well as men, and there is variety in the length as well. The one thing that all these poems have in common is their beauty. Recently children's poets have resorted to ickiness and shock to attract children. These poems use language that expands their vocabulary and makes them want to use these new words themselves. My children have started using words like prithee! The illustrations in this book are as attractive to me now as they were when I was a child, and my children love them as well. The illustration for Daffodils makes a person feel as though we are wandering lonely as a cloud with the child as well. If this book were more widely available, I would buy a stack to give out at baby showers.

My 35 year old daughter still has her copy of this book which I gave to her when she was 2 or 3 yrs. old. We spent many hours over many years reading the poems.It is a beautiful, warm experience to lose onesself in this book.I never tire of just leafing through the pages once more.I want this book for my grandchildren. It definitely is due to be reprinted.

I still have my copy of A Child's Book of Poems, my most beloved childhood book. I read from it to my son every night. This is the most beautifully illustrated anthology of poems by great poets, some famous and some not so well known (from William Blake to William Shakespeare) I have ever seen! I have so many of the poems memorized that I hardly have to look at the words, allowing me to soak up the fantastic artwork as I get lost in a wonderland of rhyme. It is a shame that this book is not still in print.